Real Life Angry birds

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but today we spent a good deal of our time playing real life angry birds on our front steps. The sling shot was a traditional y shaped branch I had seen a while back and broken into a usable stick that fit right into the hole in our ceramic Thai elephant that sits at our doorstep. Rubber bands and some cloth for a pocket.

For angry birds I shaped the red wax that surrounds those Baby bell circle cheeses that the kids like to eat for snacks. I save the wax every time and had been using it as a sort of play doh, (which Grace thinks is disgusting). I like that it doesn't dry out. It just hardens or softens based on what it's temperature is. So if you leave it on a rock in the sun, it is quite malleable. Actually it can even get a little too gooey and sticky. Anyway, instead of just rolling that into balls (I didn't have THAT much) I made it into larger hollow red balls, so they were easier to spot, and just felt more like Angry birds.

We shot at some blocks and a model of Noah's old school that he had made at BCNC out of toilet paper rolls and other recyclable material.

For pigs I just rolled up some weeds I picked and wrapped rubber bands from the JP Gazette around it.

It was pretty fun when Jonah was asleep. I shot the ceiling once, not realizing how strong the sling shot would be, and in general we had a tendency to either over shoot (so that it went into the grass or bushes and was hard to find) or under shoot, (which didn't matter because we just picked them off the steps. It was a relaxing fun activity that involved a few skills and was still outside in the sunshine.


When Jonah woke up however the game was more difficult to play. There was the whole taking turns thing, which actually wasn't that bad. It was more that Jonah didn't get the hang of shooting the birds. Not only had we had more practice, he doesn't have as developed motor skills. Noah wanted to help, but his lesson was pretty overbearing. Plus the sun was more directly on us, and I think the plants were releasing whatever it is that makes me allergic. Or maybe just the rush hour traffic was kicking up more allergens into the air.

In any case we had to go inside and I think I'm done for the day. By the time I get to a playground it will be time to leave. Plus the kids have no objection to just watching PBS kids for the rest of the day.

So now it's just waiting for Mommy to come home. Maybe I can take a picture of our little angry bird set up.